BOOK VI

SECTION IV

JUNCTION WITH THE ROYAL FORCES.

 

After lying some time concealed in a place of great strength, called the Jews' mountain, the remains of the Queen's army took courage and effected a junction with the Royal forces. The Portuguese chose, in the place of Don Christopher, Alphonso Caldeyra, and on his death from an accident, Arius Dias, whose mother had been an Indian, commander of the musqueteers. Discontent had now fortunately broke out in the camp of Gragne : his Turkish allies, the most formidable part of his forces, conceiving themselves neglected in the distribution of booty, had left him, and he was compelled to carry on the war with his own troops. The battle of Woggora, which took place in the November of this year, ended in the defeat of the Mahometans, and in the death of three among their principal chiefs : but the succeeding months were occupied by each army in ravaging the territory of the enemy.

At length the two chiefs came in sight of each other; and, asneither were anxious to avoid battle, a general engagement followed. The Portuguese fought like tigers, in order to revenge the death of De Gama; and the presence of the King kept the Abyssinians to their duty. The centre of Gragne's army was driven back, and that chief, to encourage his men advanced from the main body, and stood waving his hands to those who were retiring. This was marked by Pedro Leao, who had been valet to Don Christopher : and creeping along the bank of a river, which bounded the field of battle, he approached so near to Gragne, as to make his aim perfectly certain, and then fired. The Mahometan chief, finding himself mortally wounded, rode aside into a copse, where he fell dead from his horse. The rout became general; Leao contented himself with cutting off and preserving the ear of Gragne, and then joined in the pursuit. This great victory put an end to the tyranny of Adel.

When the troops were recalled from the pursuit, an Abyssinian officer, having found the body of Gragne, presented his head to the King, and was received by him with great honor. Dias coolly observed, that the courage of Gragne was too well known to allow the belief, that any man could have cut off his ear while he was living; and thereupon introduced Leao for the reward so unjustly claimed by the other.

Disputes began, when the kingdom was a little settled, between Bermudez and Claudius, on the subject of their Creeds, and of the subjection which was owed by Ethiopia to the See of Rome. The old reproach of the Jacobites was employed against the Patriarch; that he was an Arian, and worshipped four gods; and Bermudez, it must be allowed, was too much disposed to answer railing with railing. Arius Dias was now gained by the King : and had, it was said, submitted to be rebaptized. Claudius wrote to Cairo, requesting that an Abuna might be sent, as had been the previous custom, from the Patriarch of Alexandria; and Joseph, the ecclesiastic chosen for this office, was received in Abyssinia with great joy and exultation.

From this time, Roman influence began to decline; and the mission which might have rescued Ethiopia from heresy, seemed likely to serve no other purpose, than the widening of the breach between that nation and the Catholic Church. Bermudez returned to Dobarwa, and there quietly occupied himself in thc instruction of a few Portuguese who had settled in the place. From thence, after some time, he returned to Goa apparently resigning his dignity; and, shortly afterwards returned to Lisbon, when he published the above account of his labors.